{"podcast":{"title":"Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff","slug":"economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501","podcast_index_feed_id":6614501,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/e8bfdf7c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://larrykotlikoff.substack.com/","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/38948887/38948887-1694271789346-097e16ba7f8da.jpg","author":"Economics Matters","episode_count":149,"summary":"Economics Matters is a podcast hosted by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, one of the most influential economists in the world, a Global Economics Advisor, NY Times Best Selling Author, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., and Director of the Fiscal Analysis Center. In each episode, Professor Kotlikoff talks to experts about the power of economics in our modern day society. From personal finance and fiscal policy, to social security and income inequality, Economics Matters delves into much of the economic challenges of modern society.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-12T04:22:26.196756+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501"},"episode":{"title":"\"We're Running a 20th Century Operating System on a 21st Century Economy — And It's Crashing\"","slug":"we-re-running-a-20th-century-operating-system-on-a-21st-century-economy-and-it-s-crashing","published_at":"2026-07-02T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/we-re-running-a-20th-century-operating-system-on-a-21st-century-economy-and-it-s-crashing","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/economics-matters/episodes/Were-Running-a-20th-Century-Operating-System-on-a-21st-Century-Economy--And-Its-Crashing-e3lghep","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/e8bfdf7c/podcast/play/122225561/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-6-1%2F427140041-44100-2-ce6e2295abe43.mp3","summary":"What happens when five completely unrelated thinkers, writing across five different decades, all point to the exact same moment in history as a coming crisis point...and that moment is now? Samuel Huntington, Neil Howe, Ray Dalio, George Friedman, and Peter Turchin never collaborated. All of them landed on the 2020s. In this episode, Larry Kotlikoff sits down with Bruce Mehlman — founder of Mehlman Consulting, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy under George W. Bush, and author of the widely-read Substack Age of Disruption, for a conversation covering geopolitical aftershocks, political polarization, AI's economic risk, and whether the median American worker has gained any ground in fifty years. What You'll Learn in This Episode: [00:08:05] What the Iran conflict revealed about global supply chain fragility — and the permanent changes companies are making now [00:11:43] The "mid-2020s crisis" convergence — five major historical frameworks, developed independently, all pointing to right now [00:15:39] Why 11 of the last 13 federal elections have been "change" elections — up from just 3 of 10 in the 1960s and '70s [00:21:02] The staggering partisan perception gap — how badly Republicans and Democrats misjudge what the other side actually looks like [00:31:02] A sharp disagreement over whether AI is overhyped — Larry argues AI gets deterministic financial questions catastrophically wrong; Bruce pushes back with the early-aviation analogy [00:40:52] The "servant economy" concern — whether AI eliminates good middle-management jobs while leaving low-wage service work behind [00:48:38] A Social Security trustees report most people missed — the program is now 46% underfunded, requiring a payroll tax hike from 12.4% to 18.1…","meta_description":"What happens when five completely unrelated thinkers, writing across five different decades, all point to the exact same moment in history as a coming cri…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3926,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/episodes/we-re-running-a-20th-century-operating-system-on-a-21st-century-economy-and-it-s-crashing/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/we-re-running-a-20th-century-operating-system-on-a-21st-century-economy-and-it-s-crashing.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}